Strobotron studio setup - Flash but no Flash
LivingLarge
Registered Users Posts: 120 Major grins
This has me stumped....
I purchased an older but fully functional Strobotron studio 4 light setup. I made VERY sure that each and every piece of the set worked before parting with my coin. Each strobe flashed when the shutter was pressed and all model lights worked.
*****I tested with my camera but with sellers PocketWizard Plus setup (which was NOT for sale)*****
I then bought a WEIN peanut slave - until I can afford a set of wireless units - and set everything up.
All 4 of the strobes fire when I press the shutter. But I cannot get an image to expose correctly at all. They all come out too dark. I did some testing and it seems like the strobes are firing too quickly. I even tried to take a picture of the strobes firing directly into the camera and they all are dark.
Am I missing something? :dunno
The power unit has sync/async (tried both) and full and half power. Not at all sure what to do next. I even tried a different peanut - same results.
I forgot my images out in the car.
I purchased an older but fully functional Strobotron studio 4 light setup. I made VERY sure that each and every piece of the set worked before parting with my coin. Each strobe flashed when the shutter was pressed and all model lights worked.
*****I tested with my camera but with sellers PocketWizard Plus setup (which was NOT for sale)*****
I then bought a WEIN peanut slave - until I can afford a set of wireless units - and set everything up.
All 4 of the strobes fire when I press the shutter. But I cannot get an image to expose correctly at all. They all come out too dark. I did some testing and it seems like the strobes are firing too quickly. I even tried to take a picture of the strobes firing directly into the camera and they all are dark.
Am I missing something? :dunno
The power unit has sync/async (tried both) and full and half power. Not at all sure what to do next. I even tried a different peanut - same results.
I forgot my images out in the car.
“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heartis an artist.”
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heartis an artist.”
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2- how old are these flashes and are they monoblocs or are they connected to a power supply??
Try something simple......use you widest lens and have flash units so you can frame them all......set each one at different power level with middle one at full power........... set camera at iso 100.....if possible...if not lowest ISO..............set shutter at 60 and aperture at f8.....now fire the camera focused on the flash that is set at full power............
you should get something like this:
That was a shot to show a couple of backdrops I had for sale and also to see what my flashes looked like....as you can see I had only 3.....2 of them were at home being lazy:D.................
Hope that helps.
Above all, I tried to do exactly what Art has in his image, but my lights are dark in the image. I visually was able to see them fire though!!!!!!
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heartis an artist.”
Try facing the peanut directly at your 430ex, and try it again. It sounds like the peanut isn't picking up the flash in time. Maybe try having your 430ex in manual mode turned all the way down to 1/64th or 1/128th, whatever the lowest they can go to is. Then work your way to full power at 1/1. This way you can test to see if it is a bad sensor.
If the strobes were working with Pocket Wizards, they're not broken, if anything its your peanut that may be broken.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heartis an artist.”
It may not be the same issue, but I was having trouble getting my peanuts to work with my 7d too. I was trying to fire them using the pop up flash. every time, I could see the slaves fire, but the camera didn't see them. I was trying ISO 100 and kept trying lower and lower shutter speeds, but it never made a difference. I was finally able to get it to work by going into the menu and disabling the wireless function for the built in flash. There was apparently a tiny preflash that was firing the peanuts prematurely even though I had the flash set to manual mode.
Edit: I see that you have a 580 Speedlite. Put that on the camera, set that on manual at a low power just for trigger, and you are good to go.
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I will try to find this tonite. Thanks
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heartis an artist.”
I just ran into this problem with my Nikons and trying to use the sb900 in umbrella and a WhiteLightning 5000 as a background light.....the WL was firing on preflash measurement......and with pop up in commander mode it disables my pc sync port so I cannot use the pop up as commander and the sync port to fire other flashes also......I know I want tooo much.........
to directly hook into these older flashes you will need a SAFE SYNC.....made by WEIN and they run around $50 maybe a little more that is what made me go to the great working ebay triggers I use...........